Monotype, the world-renowned type suppliers, came up with a clever and novel campaign to promote their new range of web-friendly typefaces. The copy that their agency produced was inspiring and thought-provoking and featured quotations from leading industry lights. Nothing wrong with that.
But quotations are notoriously difficult to translate. Because they come from peoples’ mouths. They’re instant. And that’s what makes them so valuable. They’re typically filled with nuance and innuendo. So our challenge was to take the exact meaning of the quotation and make it work in languages other than English.
How did we do it? Tricky. We needed copywriters – who understood the requirement – and they had to be native speakers in the language for which the copy was intended. It’s no good getting just a native speaker. It’s problematic to get a copywriter who’s just about familiar with the language. You need both. Copywriters. Natives.
Which is good. Because we specialise in native-speaking copywriters.
We developed a comprehensive brief that set out exactly what Monotype needed. And that included typographical conventions and an approvals process. After all, when you’re representing a major typographical brand, mistakes aren’t an option.
To complete their campaign, Creative Translation set Monotype’s copy in the finished artwork, following the typographical conventions of each language and ensuring the correct diacritical marks, and built an approvals process, worldwide.